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If File & Print Sharing for Netware is configured and you have non-Windows 95 users, there could be serious network problems. How does this happen?

April 26, 2017configured file Netware Network Non-Windows print problems sharing Users

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If File & Print Sharing for Netware is configured and you have non-Windows 95 users, there could be serious network problems. How does this happen?

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The way Netware advertises its file and print services is via Netware’s proprietary (but widely documented) Service Advertising Protocol (SAP). How to get to these resources is communicated via Routing Information Protocol (RIP) packets. Both SAP and RIP info are transmitted broadcast style. Netware servers and even intelligent networking equipment that conform to the SAP and RIP protocol scheme (like routers) share this info dynamically between each other. The problem is when Windows 95 is set up with File & Print Sharing for Netware, because the Windows 95 workstation does a lousy job of implementing and interacting with the SAP and RIP info. As any LAN/WAN specialist will tell you, extra SAPs can quickly waste bandwidth, causing timeouts and broadcast storms. And that is exactly what Windows 95 does. Netware 3.x and 4.x have released patches, but the easiest thing to do is simply NOT use File & Print Sharing under Windows 95 — use Netware’s file and print services like they’re supp